Retrofit Accessibility vs Progressive Enhancement

Developers should learn and apply retrofit accessibility when maintaining or updating older applications that lack built-in accessibility features, especially in industries like government, education, or e-commerce where legal compliance and user inclusivity are critical meets developers should use progressive enhancement when building websites or applications that need to reach a broad audience, including users on older browsers, low-bandwidth connections, or assistive technologies. Here's our take.

Retrofit Accessibility

Nice Pick

Developers should learn and apply retrofit accessibility when maintaining or updating older applications that lack built-in accessibility features, especially in industries like government, education, or e-commerce where legal compliance and user inclusivity are critical

Pros

• It is essential for avoiding lawsuits, expanding market reach, and improving user experience for diverse audiences, often requiring audits, code refactoring, and testing with assistive technologies
• Related to: web-accessibility, wcag-compliance

Cons

• Specific tradeoffs depend on your use case

Progressive Enhancement

Developers should use Progressive Enhancement when building websites or applications that need to reach a broad audience, including users on older browsers, low-bandwidth connections, or assistive technologies

Pros

• It's crucial for ensuring accessibility compliance, improving SEO through semantic HTML, and creating robust applications that degrade gracefully when advanced features fail
• Related to: semantic-html, responsive-web-design

Cons

• Specific tradeoffs depend on your use case

The Verdict

These tools serve different purposes. Retrofit Accessibility is a concept while Progressive Enhancement is a methodology. We picked Retrofit Accessibility based on overall popularity, but your choice depends on what you're building.

The Bottom Line

Retrofit Accessibility wins

Based on overall popularity. Retrofit Accessibility is more widely used, but Progressive Enhancement excels in its own space.